Web 2.0 Summit videos: Yang, Doerr, Armstrong
The Web 2.0 Summit isn't just for geeks and software industry insiders--not with a speaker list that includes the likes of Al Gore and Lance Armstrong.
Day 1 of the San Francisco event featured on-stage talks with Armstrong, the multiyear Tour de France champion and force-of-nature bicyclist, along with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and top-shelf venture capitalist John Doerr. Below are videos of their on-stage talks, courtesy of TechWeb.
Yang showed up at an inauspicious moment for his company: longtime rival and sometime partner Google announced on Wednesday that it was giving up on a proposed search-advertising deal with Yahoo, an agreement that had been a key factor in Yahoo's tangling earlier this year with would-be buyer Microsoft.
"It's been a pretty amazing year," Yang allowed. "I certainly didn't expect the year to be
what it's been."
Doerr, meanwhile, had a lot to say about politics and the economy, less than a day after Sen. Barack Obama had become the president-elect. In the first of the two videos below, he talks about energy policy, R&D, a federal chief technology officer, and more. In the second, he focuses on start-ups and the economy.
About energy, Doerr said, "It's the challenge for the generation, it's the scourge of the
economy."
"Act now, and act with speed," Doerr advised start-ups anxious about the economy. Tops
on his 11-point plan: get a loan or secure more financing.
And Armstrong had much to say about endurance, training, and motivation.
"The mind is the thing that wakes up in the morning and says, 'Hey body, let's go do this,'"
Armstrong said.
Jonathan Skillings is managing editor of CNET News, based in the Boston bureau. He's been with CNET since 2000, after a decade in tech journalism at the IDG News Service, PC Week, and an AS/400 magazine. He's also been a soldier and a schoolteacher. E-mail Jon. 
